I have been teaching golf for over 25 years and my golf instruction business in Raleigh has been in operation for over 12 years. It’s always interesting having junior golfers in class because sometimes they ask some really great questions and these questions lead to some interesting conversations.

In this morning’s junior golf class, I asked the kids, “What is the number one problem that most golfers have?”

The answer is: most golfers are playing golf with a chronically open club face. And I want to make this post really short and really simple in an effort to help most golfers with their biggest problem.

In this drill, I am using a really cool tool called the pitch assist. It’s magnetic and it attaches to your club face. You won’t actually use this tool while trying to hit a ball but it’s a really cool device that shows you where your club face is pointing. When I set up with an open club face, you can see where the club face is pointing as I take the club back and as I come through my down swing.

If my club face is open, I am going to have to make some compensations to get that club face square when it gets to the ball. Sometimes this is becoming super handsy and sometimes you have to alter your swing plane direction which results in a dramatic out to in swing path. Regardless of what kind of compensation you make to square the club face, it’s not going to be very efficient if you aren’t keeping the club face square to the arc of your swing throughout the swing.

So how do you get a handle on this issue?

First of all, let’s talk about what we want. We want to keep our club face relatively square to the arc of our swing. This is not going to be perfect or exact but we want to see the club face stay relatively square to the arc. So when I take my backswing, you can see that my club face is roughly the same angle as my spine when the club is parallel to the ground.

So the drill will be to take the club back to where it’s parallel to the ground and parallel to the target line. Take a look at your club face. It should match the angle of your spine in that position. Then practice swing through the shot. Then pull over a ball and do this same drill and actually try to hit a shot. At first, you want to start with smaller shots. This should be no more than 50% of your normal shot. In other words, half speed. It’s always easier to feel the club face when you practice at a slower speed or a smaller swing.

Remember, if you can get a handle on your club face, you can get a handle on your golf game. I hope that helped. Leave questions in the comments section.

Here’s an easy way to get a sense of what a square club face feels like and how to get back to it every time.

To start this, set up to your ball and take the club back so that it’s parallel to the ground AND parallel to the target line. When you do this, what you should see is that the club face angle should match relatively closely to the angle of your spine.

Now, if you were to set up with your club parallel to the ground, you should see that the club face is perfectly vertical and still matches the same angle as your spine.

When you move around in this position, your spine should actually match the club face if everything else stays the same and this is a great reference point to understanding squaring the club face.

We actually want to try to keep the club face square to the arc of our swing. Which means that we really don’t have to “control” the club face much, just allowing it to move along with the centripetal force. In order to get a good feel for your club face being square to your arc, think of your club face matching the angle of your spine throughout the swing.

I don’t get to do these often so I really enjoy it when I get a chance. First off, this is not a paid endorsement of the product. In fact, I went out and bought the pocket bunker out of curiosity. The idea here is that you can practice bunker shots with this device without actually having a bunker. Because we don’t have the ability to really teach bunker shots at a golf facility (both at our driving range and now at our new indoor facility), I thought it might be nice to have a tool that would enable us to teach the technique.

The thing actually looks like an octopus or a spider. They have these spindly legs that keep the ball part elevated off the ground. So in a bunker shot, the technique is to hit the sand behind the ball. So when I set up the hit the shot, I put the pocket bunker in a spot that I would normally have the ball position for a pitch shot, which is a little bit forward of center. When I set up, I am going to open up my club face a little bit. Then I am going to try to make contact with the tip of the leg on the trail side.

The weight of the pocket bunker is pretty close to the same weight of a regular golf ball. However, when I hit the pocket bunker, it went much farther than a regular ball would have gone with the same strike. But as I worked with it, I started to get a better feel for it. I would say that the pocket bunker is definitely a winner, especially when you don’t have the ability to practice in an actual bunker.

A couple weeks ago, we talked about why the high handicapper slices. This week we are talking about why the low handicapper has a tendency to hook the ball.

Our high handicap golfer tends to swing the club a bit out to in. Conversely, the lower handicap golfer knows that he or she should be swinging more in to out; however, that golfer may swing a little too much in to out. In other words, if you tend to hook the ball, you are probably swinging out to the right (for a right handed golfer) with a closed club face.

If you are struggling with hook shots in your game, a way to correct this or to work on this would be to

1. As you start your downswing, try to feel your hands moving away from you.

2. Feel like you are unwinding your body in a way that’s going to get the club working more toward the target line. Your hands should be more out in front of your chest in the downswing as opposed to back behind you.

3. Try to feel like you are swing more to the left (for a right handed golfer).

4. Work on these drills mostly with a mid iron; it’s much easier to work on your swing with an iron than it is with a driver. The drill will translate to the driver if you work at it.

Lauren and I spent the afternoon at Drive Shack one Sunday and we played with a group of friends who don’t play much golf. The subject came up about the “rescue club” which is the hybrid club. We thought this would be a great topic for a video since some beginner golfers don’t know what they are.

What is a Hybrid?

A hybrid club is just like the name says: a hybrid of an iron and a wood. It’s meant to replace your longer irons.

Does everyone need a hybrid?

Yes, probably everyone could benefit from having a hybrid in their bag. The reason is a long iron doesn’t have a wide sole and there’s not a ton of material down low so it’s hard to get the center of gravity of the club below the equator of the ball. So when you catch the ball thin, you are catching the club on the way up a little bit. When you hit a hybrid club on the same shot, it has a shallower face and so much of the weight of the club is back and back behind where the ball would be so even if you catch it a little thin, all of the weight low and back on the club will still help you get the ball up in the air. Generally, the hybrid club is going to get the ball in the air much easier than a long iron. The manufacturers of clubs have essentially taken the guesswork out of it so that a 4 hybrid would be the club to replace your 4 iron. Theoretically, those clubs are intended to be hit the same distance (if they are hit solidly). That being said, you are more likely going to hit your 4 hybrid farther because you are likely not hitting your 4 iron solidly.

Which clubs should you replace with hybrids?

Once you get past your 7 iron, you are better off moving to a hybrid club especially for a recreational and beginner golfer. So anything 6 iron or longer. The higher handicapper or the newer you are at golf, the closer to the 6 iron you will want to replace. In other words, if you are a beginner golfer or have a handicap over 16, you should consider replacing your 6 iron and longer with a hybrid type club.

How long have hybrids been around?

When I was a kid, a company named Browning used to make a set of irons that looked like hybrids. They went away and then in the 90’s, Taylormade came out with the Rescue Club. In 2004 about 10% of golfers had hybrids in their bag, as of now, it’s a much bigger percentage. Even tour players are starting to use hybrids now as well.

Finally, if you are resistant to using hybrids because you believe you hit your long irons really well, I think if you give yourself a chance to hit some hybrids, you will find that you are playing the game better and enjoying the game more. Try to let go of your preconceived notions and biases that you may have because it is proven that hybrid clubs are so much easier to hit.

In the next few weeks, we will go over 3 different shots you can execute with your hybrid.

What are the worst things you can do on the golf course???

Remember the difference between rules and etiquette violations in golf…rules violations will cost you strokes and etiquette violations will cost you playing partners, and friends. So here’s the list of the top 10 breaches of etiquette on the golf course in our own personal order. We have had a TON of suggestions and recommendations to add to this list but here’s what we came up with the start with:

#10. Giving yourself a gimme

Don’t ever assume your putt is good, especially if you are playing for money.

#9. Playing out of turn.

The general consensus is whoever is further from the hole or whoever had the best score on the previous hole typically goes first. There is one caveat here and that’s if you are playing “ready golf” to speed up the pace of play. However, you never want to assume that you are playing ready golf without talking to your playing partners. So if your playing partner had the better score on the last hole, but you are ready to hit, just ask if it’s okay. Don’t assume.

8. Unsolicited Advice

Don’t ever give advice on the golf course if someone hits an errant shot or is struggling with their swing. It’s not usually helpful or productive when someone is having trouble.

#7. Slow Play

Once it’s your turn to play and no one is in your way, hit your shot in less than 24 seconds. More than 2 practice swings is excessive and stay on task. Don’t lose track of whose turn it is by being distracted by other things (especially cell phone use). You want to try to play a round in under 4 hours and 15 minutes.

#6. Shadows or Movements in someone’s shot

You don’t really want to be anywhere that someone can be distracted by your movement. Your shadow should not be crossing the line of someone’s putt. Be aware of your presence when it’s someone else’s turn to hit. Try not to be distracting with movement.

#5. Playing Loud Music on the Golf Course

Be aware that some people really want to be out in nature and may not want to hear your music. Music also does carry across water so you want to make sure that other people aren’t forced to listen to music.

#4. Golf bag on the green

Make sure you don’t ever place your golf bag on the green. This can cause damage to the delicate greens and it’s also inconsiderate to the other golfers you are playing with.

#3. Disrespecting the Golf Course

Always leave the golf course in better shape than you found it. Pick up litter, fix your ball marks on the green as well as others, rake your bunkers, and generally keep the golf course in good condition.

#2. Talking or making noise in someone’s swing

Be very mindful to making noise in someone’s back swing or if they are about to hit a shot. Be very quiet while they are playing!

#1. Walking in someone’s line

We equate this to wearing white to someone else’s wedding. You need to be very aware of where everyone else’s ball is on the green and never walk between their ball and the hole. The history is that when people used to wear metal spikes on their golf shoes, they would change the grain of the grass and could cause someone’s putt to go off line. When you step on the green, there might be a slight indentation where your foot mark was and could change the roll of the putt. You will accidentally do it at some point. Just acknowledge it and apologize. Simply noticing that you did it will go a long way with your playing partners.

So there you have it…

Our top 10 etiquette violations in golf. We are talking more about this on Friday, June 10th at 4 pm live on Youtube and Instagram. We hope you will join us and give us some of your own suggestions on the things that drive you crazy on the golf course. Comment below with your suggestions!

Here’s the situation.

You are around the green and you have a basic little pitch shot. You want to loft it on the green and have it roll out very little. Most people will take out their sand wedge for this shot but how do they feel about that. Probably very little confidence. If you are lacking confidence with this shot, you may want to change your strategy a little bit.

Ideally, remember the less loft you use, the less skill you need. So, if you can putt it, putt it. If you can’t putt it, you should probably chip it. But if you need to get the ball up in the air higher or maybe have a higher skilled shot, you may have no other option than to pitch it. Most recreational golfers are going to pull out a sand wedge attempting to hit a higher lofted shot that will land softly and roll out very little. However, when executing that type of shot, the golfer is going to need to put a lot of energy and acceleration into the shot to get it to go high enough. With this amount of energy being put into this particular shot, if you make less than solid contact, the results can be catastrophic!

There’s an easier way to do this…pull out your gap wedge.

The gap wedge is what the pitching wedge used to be. The gap wedge is actually preferable to get the ball on the ground sooner and have it roll out a little bit more. You might notice that if you make less than stellar contact, you might still not be in terrible shape. The idea is that with a less lofted club, we are going to see less catastrophe with our misses. Remember, nothing beats practice. Take a dozen balls out to the range and practice chipping with the different lofted clubs. You may notice that your misses are much better with the gap wedge than the sand wedge. Let us know if this helped.

We have a lot of students who come out for golf lessons or classes who are brand new to the game and don’t know the difference between their clubs. Additionally, we have a ton of seasoned golfers who often get confused by the amount of variations of wedges that they might have in their bag. Your wedges might have a letter or a number on them. The varying degrees of loft can be quite overwhelming. Here’s a standard chart of the typical wedges you might have in your bag:

• Pitching Wedge - 43-47 degrees

• Gap Wedge - 47-52 degrees

• Sand Wedge - 54-56 degrees

• Lob Wedge - 58-62 degrees

First of all, as a new golfer, make sure you don’t have redundancy in your bag. You might have multiple clubs that are so close in loft that it’s completely unnecessary to have both. So check your lofts on your clubs. If your club has a letter instead of a number, you can have your club checked by someone who builds or repairs clubs to ensure that you have what you need in your bag.

The reason why this topic is so confusing is because of marketing.

It used to be that a pitching wedge was 50 degrees of loft, a 9 iron was 46 degrees, and an 8 iron would be 42 degrees. That pitching wedge would be enough loft that you would be able to hit a nice high shot that lands softly (known as a pitch shot) hence the name pitching wedge. Then you would have a sand wedge that would normally be 56 degrees. Just from your pitching wedge to your sand wedge would be a little bit of a stretch (*or gap) between the lofts. The manufacturers were trying to sell more golf clubs and probably sitting around the room trying to figure out how to sell more clubs by giving golfers what they want.

What do golfers want? They want more distance.

So they said, if we start making the lofts a little stronger, people would think they were hitting the clubs much longer. This continued happening until the pitching wedge became generally around 46 degrees which then popularized the club known as the gap wedge (also known as an alternate or utility wedge). It is a wedge that’s in between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge.

So what wedges do we need in our bag?

You absolutely need a 54 to 56 degree sand wedge in your bag. It’s an absolute necessity. You also should have a gap wedge. And then more than likely you will have a pitching wedge which hits more like an iron now than a wedge. You might also be tempted to have a 60 degree lob wedge in your bag. The actual area to effectively hit the ball solidly on a 60 degree lob wedge is very small so it becomes extremely tricky to hit well. You would do well to take the 60 out of your bag which will also help with some indecision you might have on which club to use.

Feel free to respond with any questions about wedges. Don’t forget, we go live on Youtube on Thursday, May 26th at 4 pm EST to talk more about this topic.

Most golfers, when they have been playing for a little while, come to me with the hope that I can help them hit their driver better. I am going to give you a drill that will help you start hitting your driver better but it does require practice and a certain amount of discipline. The goal is to take a full swing with the driver but only 50% speed. So if you normally hit your driver 220 yards, during this drill, you will only hit it 110 yards. During the drill, the goals are to make center face contact and for the ball to be relatively straight.

It’s actually much harder to do than it looks. When we tell our students to swing 50%, it usually ends up being more like 80-90%. If you can manage to swing slower, it will help you get a feel for the club face, the path, and most importantly making center face contact.

Here’s another great drill to work on indoors during the winter months or rainy days. This is something that a lot of people don’t like to work on and only really gloss over this major problem. The reverse pivot is a huge problem and can’t seriously affect your ability to get the club on the correct swing plane. The reverse pivot is when your secondary spine angle changes and causes your back hip to slide back and the orientation of your spine become the reverse of what it should be. When you look at a really good player, if you put a line on the back side of the player, when the shoulders turn back, the hips stay in place and a bit later, the hips turn. There is no lateral slide to those hips. When we laterally slide, we have to make some compensations to get back to the ball. So how do we fix this?

We are going to learn this one piece at a time. First, we want to be able to feel what the correct motion feels like. So start this without a club and a ball. We are going to bump our hips toward the target and let our head drop back behind the ball. But you still want to be vertical. Then we are going to put our club across our chest. When we turn back away from the target, we should feel some resistance in that rotation. We can feel some pressure between the ball and the heel of your foot. This is really helpful if you can use a mirror to see what’s going on in your body. When we make that turn, we should maintain the integrity of our spine in that secondary spine tilt. So first, let’s make sure you can rotate those shoulders 90 degrees around your spine. Practice the rotation in the mirror for about a week and make sure you can do this without sliding those hips.

Next, we add the primary spine tilt which is the bend at the hips so that we can hit the ball from the ground. When i bend at the hips, I want my hips to be directly between my ankle bones. When I bend forward at the hips, I want to make sure the club is 90 degrees to my spine.

Watch Video!

Finally, this is a great drill to do on the Perfect Motion app. I am going to start the app and I’m not going to take a full swing, I am going to cross the club across my chest and go through the swinging motion with the club across my chest. You can use the feedback on the app to see what’s going on in your swing. Position one is position at address, position two is the top of my backswing, and position three is impact position. We are focusing on position two with this drill to make sure we are getting into a nice pivot position.

Fix the reverse pivot and golf will become a lot more fun!

This is a great drill you can do to help with slicing. Slicing can be one of the most frustrating things in golf. Two things are going on when you are slicing. First, your club face is open meaning that the club face is pointing right of your target line for a right-handed golfer and left of the target line for a left-handed golfer. You are also swinging out to in. When it comes to the path of the club, you must swing the club with a little bit of side bend. This is what we call a secondary spine tilt. If you are coming through with your swing and you don’t have enough side bend, the club will come from out to in on its path. You can use the Perfect Motion app to really see your secondary spine tilt. The app allows you to see where the center of your chest is at impact and can really help you with fixing your side bend problem. You can do this drill without a ball and you can even do this drill without a club. When looking at the PerfectMotion app, the numbers on the app show you the position of the center of your chest at set up, at the top of the backswing, and at impact. Another cool feature when looking at your motion maps is the “Pro Overlay” feature to see what a professional golfers motion map looks like on top of your own for a comparison.

So the drill we did in this video was a one arm swing where our focus was to initiate my downswing using my lower body and simulate skipping a stone. Try this drill to increase side bend at impact and help you stop slicing the ball.

Today we worked with Kadyn to help her hit her iron shots more solidly by using the V1 Pressure Mat.

Kadyn asked me why she kept hitting behind the ball and what that had to do with her pressure. When we put her on the pressure mat and took at look at her pressure on the pressure mat. We found that she started off with 54% of her weight in her front foot which is just about perfect. When she took the club back, her weight started moving forward instead of moving back. Typically when this happens, the golfer would start moving their weight back as they start to swing the club through. However, Kadyn never actually got her weight into her back foot but her impact position was really good. In order to create a more dynamic swing for her, we had her pick up a medicine ball to help her move her weight back and then forward.

When we use a tool that’s heavier than a golf club, it helps us keep the synchronization of our body through the golf swing. We are more likely to use our entire body as a unit to move the club. We also want to try to get our weight more into our front heel. Using the medicine ball, take the ball back into your backswing and keeping your back pointing toward the target, start initiating your weight into your front foot.

If we can get our weight moving forward before we even initiate the downswing, we are more likely to hit the ball before the ground which will give us more solid contact every time!

Now that the weather is getting colder and it’s getting darker earlier, you have the opportunity to improve your golf game at home with very little equipment.

We have the advantage of the Net Return golf net and the Skytrak launch monitor. We know that most people do not and we want to help you improve your slice at home with just a golf club and a little bit of space.

In our golf studio, we are able to work with our students during inclement weather. For some people, it makes sense to deck out their space with all the gadgets but for some people, this may not be an option.

If you are struggling with a slice, your club face is probably open relative to your swing path. Most of the time this means that the club face is open and the path is moving to the left. The first thing we want to do is make sure we have a good grip. A strong grip means that the V between my thumb and forefinger on my top hand points toward my back shoulder. For someone who has had a chronically weak grip, this may be something that you have to work on for awhile to get comfortable. Once you have committed to that strong top hand, we can move onto the next thing. If the grip is strong and you’re still struggling with a slice, we may want to start looking at the next thing which would be swing path.

We need to keep our hands in front of our chest for as long as possible. Visualize yourself holding a 50 pound sandbag. We are going to need to rotate our torso in order to get that bag to swing. We want to mimic that same body movement when we hold our club, keeping our hands and arms fairly inactive. At home, you can also use a soccer ball or basketball to try to keep your hands in front of your chest during the swing. Once you put the club in your hands, try to keep the club parallel to the ground when it’s parallel to the target.

It’s helpful to have something to swing into but if you can get started off correctly, working on those things at home, when you get to the range, you will be able to use what you’ve been working on at home. In our next instructional blog, we are going to talk about how to start your downswing inside while you practice to have a better chance to swing the club in-to-out and hit the ball straighter. Click the picture below to watch the video.

Click Here

To watch our instructional video